Our Women of Excellence are just that…excellent. That’s why we have so many favorite quotes from ten years of the awards…
“If there was a door closed, I kicked it open.”
Brenda Bacon, 2018
“You could say I’m ambitious, but I’m ambitious for the people who work here and the people who seek care here.”
Adrienne Kirby, PhD, 2016
“We continue loving them until they can love themselves.”
Francina Pendergrass, 2022
“I failed the driving test the first time. Not because I hadn’t practiced, it was something inside me: Women are not allowed to drive where I come from. You can’t, you’re not smart enough. Now I have my car, I control where I go.”
Airman First Class Marian Tawfik, 2024
“We figured maybe we could get 500 people there, but that seemed like such an unattainable goal. We had something between 10 and 12 thousand people show up.”
Amy Barraclough, 2020
“There were so many things people told me I could not do. But I did, then I made sure to open the door so other people who look like me could do it too.”
Loretta Winters, 2021
“When a victim says to me, ‘Did I have to wait to get a black eye before I got help?’ The answer is no.”
Hilary Platt, 2019
“This foundation enables me to have a relationship with my daughter who is not here. In a way, it’s my world with Alicia.”
Gisele DiNatale, 2024
“You have to enjoy helping people. Otherwise, you won’t be successful.”
Debra DiLorenzo, 2019
“I thought, ‘Oh, this is why I have breast cancer, because God wants me to reach back into my professional counseling career and help breast cancer survivors.’”
Chalice Rhodes, PhD, 2024
“I can’t pinpoint how long it’ll take, because there are glass ceilings to be broken. But I plan to be the first female general manager in the NFL.”
Kristen Van Iderstine, 2017
“My goal is to make sure folks feel like they can get involved. Trust me, I know what it’s like to not feel you have a place or a voice.”
Digna Townsend, 2021
“There’s a story about starfish. A kid is walking down the beach and throwing starfish back into the water. An older man stops and says, ‘Why are you doing this? You’ll never save all the starfish.’ The kid says, ‘Yeah, but I’m saving some of them.’ That’s what we’re doing. We’re saving one life at a time.”
Sandi Kelly, 2017
“My best friends tend to be characters from my favorite books. It’s always been my escape.”
Danielle Jackson, 2022
“The reality is, trauma doesn’t have a zip code. It doesn’t have an age criteria. It impacts everyone.”
Fatihah Abdur-Rahman, 2021
“At its core, activism is intervention. I know it sounds cliche, but my point is to never give up. If you can’t join something, create something.”
Anjali Darji, 2024
“Sometimes it takes guts to take that first step, but you have to take it.”
Lara Price, 2019
“I have a great gift – hope. I share that with people who become hopeless.”
Sister Helen Cole, 2019
“Everything was stripped, our language, our religion, our history, our food. That’s why I have told these stories and will until the day I die. It has been rewarding, yet painful.”
Beverly Collins-Roberts, 2024
“Sometimes you have to go through the unthinkable to make you unstoppable. And that’s how I feel right now.”
Kimberly Reed, 2018
“I can’t even describe the feelings of that time. Society makes you put on a mask of pretending everything will be ok, but I was not ok.”
Cherry Hill Councilwoman Melinda Kane, 2018
“I came here because in my mind this is a land of opportunity, and I’m a big dreamer.”
Lita Abele, 2017
